


The X-Ray X-Double-Minus

by LulaIsAKitten



Series: First Misses [24]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 00:44:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20648426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LulaIsAKitten/pseuds/LulaIsAKitten
Summary: Follows on from W and V.





	The X-Ray X-Double-Minus

**Author's Note:**

> Follows on from W and V.

Strike was still complaining.

He had complained about the indignity of being hauled up out of the gutter by a man half his size. He had complained about Robin trying to help as he limped heavily back into the pub. He had downright glared at any suggestion that he might not finish his pint.

Parked on a bar stool, determinedly ignoring the tremors running through him that Vanessa, with her extensive first aid training, was trying to suggest might be due to shock, he complained about all the attention his fall was attracting. In the initial aftermath, it was his pride that was most wounded.

Once the situation calmed a little, though, and his adrenaline levels were approaching normal, the fierce pain in his wrist made itself known. Every movement caused stabs of agony up his arm that made him feel nauseous. Eventually Vanessa insisted, in a tone that brooked no argument, on examining it, and the combination of what she could feel through the rapidly bruising skin and the way Strike’s face blanched as soon as she touched it made her declare an x-ray essential.

Strike complained about this, too, and he complained about the police car Wardle summoned to take them to the nearest A&E. He complained that Wardle and Vanessa insisted on accompanying them, wedged into the back of the car with Robin, leaving the front seat to the injured detective. He complained about Robin fussing around him in the waiting room, balling up her coat for him to rest his wrist on in his lap.

He didn’t complain about her pulling a fondly exasperated face at him and brushing a curl from his forehead.

He did complain that he was hungry, and that the vending machine was out of Snickers and could only offer a Double Decker. Taking a deep, steadying breath, Robin declared her intention to go and find another source of chocolate. Vanessa, casting a sideways look at Strike’s scowl, swiftly offered to accompany her, leaving a dismayed Wardle to keep the sulky detective company.

The two men sat in silence for a while.

“I hate bloody hospitals,” Strike muttered eventually.

Wardle sighed. “You are not alone in that, believe me.”

Strike, casting him a sideways glance, about to articulate his superior right, suddenly remembered that it was only just over a year since Wardle had lost his brother in a hit-and-run accident. Suddenly he found himself imagining waiting here while the life of someone he loved hung in the balance. Remembered watching over Jack. Remembered waiting to see Robin after she’d been stabbed.

“Sorry, mate,” he said quietly. Wardle nodded tightly and looked away.

There was a pause.

“How’s your sister-in-law?”

Wardle shrugged. “Pretty shit. My youngest niece isn’t going to remember her dad. The boys barely will. The baby never even met him. She’s trying to juggle motherhood, work and bereavement. There’s only so much we can do.”

Strike nodded. He tried to imagine losing Lucy. She drove him mad, but...

“And...how are you?”

Wardle shrugged, paused, his eyes on the poster on the wall opposite exhorting patients not to abuse hospital staff. “I’m a bloke. We don’t talk about this stuff, right?” His habitual smirk was resigned, weary.

Strike sighed. “Maybe we should.”

He hesitated. “Let’s go for another drink some time,” he suggested cautiously.

Wardle snorted. “The rate you’re going, I’ll have to help you to the bar and hold your pint for you.” It wasn’t a refusal.

Strike laughed reluctantly. The doors swung open and Robin and Vanessa approached with their hands full of plastic cups of tea, various chocolate bars protruding from coat pockets, and his grumpy heart swelled with fondness.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he told Wardle, who chuckled too and rolled his eyes.

“Seriously, mate,” he suddenly muttered, so quietly Strike had to duck his head a little to hear. “Life is short. Carpe diem and all that.” He nodded his head infinitesimally towards their approaching colleagues.

Robin and Vanessa reached them and began handing out their foraged goods. Wardle accepted a cup of poor quality tea and a chocolate bar from his DS. Strike, lost in thought, smiled at Robin as she placed his tea on the chair next to him and sat down on the one beyond. She pulled a Snickers from her pocket and opened it before passing it across.

The four sat for a while, sipping terrible tea and munching on chocolate. A&E was mercifully quiet, and before long Strike’s name was called.

He stood briskly, hissing in a breath of pain as he forgot how his wrist hurt to move it, lulled by good company and the comfort of resting it on Robin’s coat.

Wardle stood too. “We’ll get going,” he said. “You okay?”

This last was directed at Robin. She looked up from picking up cups and wrappers, folding her coat over her arm, and smiled. “We’re fine,” she said, missing Vanessa’s fond grin at her choice of pronoun. “I’ll call a cab later.”

Wardle nodded, and Vanessa kissed Robin’s cheek, and then the police officers were gone. Robin followed Strike through to a small triage room, and stood aside while the nurse poked and manipulated his wrist and he did his best not to swear. He wasn’t entirely successful.

“That’s going to need an x-ray,” the triage nurse confirmed. “I’ll do the paperwork. You all right here for a bit?”

Strike nodded, and she bustled out. Strike and Robin looked at one another.

“Here we are again,” he said, his mouth curling into a rueful smile.

Robin grinned. “Yup. My turn next.”

Strike barked a laugh. “Let’s hope not.”

She moved across to sit on the chair next to him. Her head felt weird, floating - not sober, but not drunk either, forced into a version of sobriety by the turn of events.

“You don’t have to stay.”

She eyed him sideways. “Don’t be silly.”

“I’m not. You can—”

“I’m staying.”

He half turned to look at her, wincing at the pain in his wrist as he did so. Robin’s attention was pulled to his arm.

“Does it really hurt?”

He shrugged, and winced again. “I’ve had worse. Think it might be broken, though. That’ll be me out of action for weeks.”

Robin wondered how he would cope with his prosthetic leg if his wrist was broken. She couldn’t bring herself to ask. He’d have to, he certainly couldn’t manage crutches.

“We’ll manage,” she said stoutly. “You can type with your left hand, I’m sure.”

She grinned at him. “You know what’s hardest? I had really bad stomach flu once when I was a teenager, they put me on a drip to rehydrate me but no one asked which hand I used, they just shoved it in the nearest arm, which was my right.”

He looked at her, amused. “What’s hardest?”

“Brushing your teeth. Everything else I could manage, I could even passably write. But that particular action... I had to kind of hold the brush and nod my head up and down. Bet I looked ridiculous.” She giggled, remembering.

Strike, still touched by her use of “we”, was at the moment wondering how on earth he was going to do anything - attach his leg, dress, cook, pull himself up flights of stairs - let alone work. He grimly wondered if he was going to have to repair to Nick and Ilsa’s and submit to being nursed, something Nick at least managed to do cheerfully and with a minimum of fuss.

_One thing at a time, _he told himself._ It might not be broken._

He grinned at her, forcing a cheer he didn’t feel. “I’ll think of you when I’m looking equally ridiculous.”

Robin hesitated. “You can ask for help, you know. I’m happy to help with...anything.” She didn’t look at his leg.

Strike had a brief image of Robin dealing with his leg, helping him dress— No. Just...no. He’d submit to his friends doing that before he’d let her see him weak.

“I’ll be fine,” he said briskly.

“Cormoran—” She laid a hand on his good arm, squeezing gently. “I’m your friend. I’m offering.”

_I don’t want you to be my friend._

Suddenly the almost moment in the corridor, the way she’d looked at him outside the pub, came flooding back. Those clear, blue-grey eyes gazed into his, and he could have drowned in them. _Carpe diem. _He was swaying towards her, a little drunk and a lot tired and hazy with shock—

“Good news!” The nurse bustled in, and Robin sat back hurriedly. “X-ray is quiet, let’s send you down now before they get a queue.” She turned to Robin. “You okay to wait in the waiting area, love?”

Robin nodded, mute, pink-cheeked. Strike pulled himself upright, and the nurse handed him a folder and sent him off to follow the blue line on the floor to the x-ray department.

Robin watched him limp slowly away, and sighed and went back out to sit in the waiting area.

**Author's Note:**

> I hadn’t heard of x-double-minus. Hobbes will explain ;)


End file.
